The art of throwing, kicking and punting a football requires the use of certain muscles. Strengthening these specific muscles can be achieved by conventional weight and exercise training. However, there is no certainty that the precise proper muscles used in throwing, kicking and punting a football are actually being strengthened in the desired manner.
A number of sports have used weights attached to specific pieces of sports equipment to increase the weight of the equipment in order to train the specific muscles. Base ball bats and golf clubs have had weighted rings attached to the shafts of the bats and clubs in order to increase their weight in order to strengthen the muscles used in the ordinary use of the sports equipment.
Examples of weighted football items are as follows:
The patent to Shearer (U.S. Pat. No. 2,364,247) discloses a football with a flexible rod along the longitudinal axis of the football and which has fins projecting perpendicular to the rod. The rod and fins are disclosed as being flexible so as to compress when the football is fallen on, and there is no disclosure that the insert is intended to increase the weight of the football in order to increase the strength of the muscles used in throwing or kicking the football.
The patent to Corely (U.S. Pat. No. 4,943,055) discloses a weighted warmup ball which has a metal center. The device is disclosed as being int he shape of a sphere. The patent discloses that balls and footballs have had added weights in order to strengthen the muscles used in throwing the balls. There is no disclosure that the warmup ball would be in any shape other than a sphere.
In the patent to Brandt (U.S. Pat. No. 1,597,308) a weighted football is disclosed in which the inside of the football is filled with a material to make it heavier than a conventional football.
In the patent to Russo (U.S. Pat. No. 3,450,407) an anti-fumbling football is disclosed in which a fluid is added to the interior of the football. The patent discloses that the fluid makes it more difficult to handle than a conventional football.
None of the foregoing patents disclosed a football having weighted elements oriented along the central axis of the football for adding weight to the football for strengthening the muscles used in throwing or kicking the football.
However, problems arise in merely adding weights to a non symmetrical ball, such as a football, which are not encountered in a golf club or a weighted symmetrical object, such as a baseball. The football has a oblong shape which must be thrown in a spiral to assure accuracy. The addition of weights to the football must avoid destroying the balance of the football, otherwise it can not be thrown properly. Also, the weighted training football must be caught in order to make it easier to catch a conventional football, requires that the training football be capable of being thrown in the same manner as a conventional football.